


Hungry

by sanctuary_for_all



Series: You Know Me So Well [6]
Category: The Rookie (TV 2018)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Feels, Fluff, Marriage Proposal, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-10
Updated: 2020-06-10
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24636670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanctuary_for_all/pseuds/sanctuary_for_all
Summary: Ever since she could remember, Lucy had been hungry. (Formerly titled "Feeling Things")
Relationships: Tim Bradford/Lucy Chen
Series: You Know Me So Well [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1787263
Comments: 11
Kudos: 156





	Hungry

Ever since she could remember, Lucy had been hungry.

Modern psychology didn’t like to use the term unless they were talking about hunger disorders. They referred to the sensation as unfulfilled desire, urging patients to focus on identifying the specific need that wasn’t being met and make the lifestyle changes necessary to achieve it. It was meant to be a calm, logical process, entailing extensive study and self-evaluation.

For a long time, Lucy had thought the hunger meant ambition. She strove to be the best in everything, from academics to extracurricular activities to general social situations. She nearly always managed it, going for what she wanted with a single-minded focus that had scared off the few boyfriends who had been allowed to see it. Neither the successes or the absent boyfriends had satisfied the hunger, but she told herself that meant she simply hadn’t accomplished all her goals yet.

(Sometimes, she had a terrible feeling she was lying to herself. There was a part of her that wanted to snarl at people who didn't seem to understand what it felt like to be so _hungry_ all the time, to shake them until they finally told her why nothing ever seemed to feel like it was supposed to. 

But maybe everyone felt like this. After all, wasn't that what therapy was _for_?)

Then she stumbled sideways into the idea of law enforcement, and it had been so stunningly _right_ that she’d practically felt a click inside her chest. She’d created an entire list of logical reasons to justify the sudden change, using them depending on who was asking her about it, but the truth was that it had been only thing to ever settle some of the snarling hunger in her chest. This was what she’d been looking for, even though she hadn’t even imagined the shape of it before she’d found it. She’d have done nearly anything to keep it, up to and including putting her relationship with her parents at risk. Sacrificing a romance with Nolan had been easy in comparison.

The hunger wasn’t gone, not completely, but Lucy told herself _that_ must be the ambition she’d assumed it was for so long. It would ease as she mastered the job she’d been meant for, and she threw herself into her studies with the same focus and intensity with which she’d lived most of her life. Finally, everything would be right in her world.

Then she graduated the academy and met her T.O. Bradford was calculating, infuriating, and she set about solving him the way she’d solved every problem in her life. She’d wring every lesson from their time together that she possibly could, and it wasn’t long before she realized that he had far more to teach her than it had seemed at their first meeting. Far more important than that, he was _interesting_.

Working with him was a constant challenge, one she enjoyed far more than she was probably supposed to. She respected him, despite how often she wanted to shout at him, and tried hard not to look too closely at the fact that she liked him as well. 

("Liked" was not nearly strong enough a word to be accurate, especially after he'd started letting her in, but it was the only word she allowed herself to even think. Everything beyond that was too dangerous.)

As time passed, it got harder and harder to hide parts of herself around him. All the wild, snarling parts that would never seem to do what they were told, the ones she'd always been so careful to hold back. Instead of being horrified like everyone else would be, he encouraged it. Most of the time, he even seemed to _like_ it.

She'd known exactly what it meant when the last remnants of the hunger started slipping away. She just hadn't been able to admit it to herself.

(At least, not back then.) 

000

It was Tuesday, which meant it was Tim's turn to handle dinner. That usually meant takeout of some kind – often the case for both of them, given their schedules – and they'd usually get a call or text at some point throughout the day asking what the other would be interested in. That hadn't been the case today, but by the time Lucy got home she was so exhausted she would have been happy with peanut butter sandwiches.

Instead, a heavenly smell filled her nose the moment she stepped into the house. After saying hello to Kojo, who happily greeted her before returning his attention to his favorite chew toy, she headed straight for the kitchen. “My soup,” she breathed, collapsing dramatically against Tim’s back and wrapping her arms around his middle. “How did you get it? They barely stay open long enough to handle the lunch rush.”

The amusement in his voice was warming. “Guess.”

“Since you’re the one who always told me to think like a criminal, my first guess is breaking and entering.” She let go of him reluctantly, hopping up to sit on the edge of the counter. “Though don’t give me the details. I don’t want to have to testify against you.”

He raised an eyebrow as he finished reheating the soup, a little smile on his face he couldn’t quite manage to fight. “If I did commit a crime, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to go around talking about it afterward.”

“You would if you saw someone doing a really bad job of committing the same crime,” she teased, the weight of the day easing. It was harder for it to reach her here, in this little bubble with only the two of them. “You couldn’t help it. You’d have to correct them.”

“Which I could do without admitting to anything.” He crossed the little bit of distance between them, stepping into the v of her legs as he leaned in for a long, slow kiss. She let herself melt into it, cradling his head in her hands like it was something precious.

When they broke apart, he gave her another one of those little smiles. “But no, no crime was committed. I know how early they close, so I swung by at lunch.”

“And then made sure no one poached it out of the fridge, which in my experience is even harder than committing the average crime.” Throat tightening, she leaned her forehead against his. “Thank you.”

“You sounded like you were having a hell of a day.” His expression was solemn for a moment, full of understanding. Then his lips curved again. “Now, can you handle getting the bowls?”

She grinned. “I think I can manage that.” Straightening, she stretched an arm back and opened the cupboard just over her shoulder. Pulling two bowls out by feel, she handed them to him. “Will these work?”

“You just like doing that trick.” When she raised an eyebrow at him, his smile widened. “Hey, I never said I don’t like watching that trick. You always look so proud of yourself when you do it.”

She laughed. “There’s a lot of people who would see me looking proud of myself as a terrible warning sign.”

He gave her another quick kiss, then picked up the bowls and moved them closer to the microwave. “Those people are idiots.”

She watched him, throat suddenly tight. She’d had a lot of relationships over the years, the advantages and disadvantages to each drawn up in her head well before they’d ever started, and not a single one of them had come anywhere close to what she had with Tim. 

They fought sometimes – everyone did – but he'd learned to talk out what he was feeling and she'd learned he always felt at least twice as much as he ever managed to put into words. It had only served to deepen their connection, strengthening a bond of understanding, playfulness, and support she hadn’t been able to even imagine before this. Being with him felt like home on such a fundamental level that even she didn't have the words for it. They were partners in every sense of the word.

She wanted it forever.

Lucy lost her breath as realization settled into her, as solid and true as Tim himself. A dozen possible complications spun wildly in her brain, all of them ready at a moment's notice to offer up entire lists explaining why this would be a bad idea. Why it wasn't the right time. Why she should carefully weigh out the pros and cons. Why she should sit down and work out the exact right words first.

Right then, none of that mattered. She’d been looking for Tim her entire life and hadn’t even realized it, and she’d be damned if she’d let him go.

Of course, he had to agree to that last part.

Lucy swallowed, and it took a second before she could trust her voice. "Have you ever thought about getting married again?"

Tim went absolutely still, the silence around them both so deep it echoed. A few beats later, he slowly set the soup container down with the kind of care you would expect from someone handling fine china. "Is this a hypothetical question?" he asked finally, voice as careful as his hands had been.

She didn't dare breathe. His back was still to her, and she thought that she'd give just about anything to be able to see his face. "It can be, if that's what you want."

He gripped the edge of the counter, hard. "What about what you want?" The words were still so controlled, but she could hear the unsteadiness underneath them now.

And she knew, with a certainty that kept her heart beating, exactly what it meant.

Chest clenched so tight it hurt (but such a sweet pain) she slowly slid off the counter and walked over to him. She gently peeled one of his hands off the counter so she could hold onto it. When he turned to look at her, the open, raw look on his face was so infused with hope it made her eyes fill.

She got down on one knee, heart too full to have any chance at words. She just looked up at him, making sure everything she felt was shining out of her eyes.

Tim just stared down at her for a few heartbeats, his eyes just as wet as hers. Then he dropped to his own knees, lifting their joined hands and pressing a kiss against the back of hers. “Only if it’s to you,” he breathed.

She made a sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob as she flung herself at him, enthusiastically enough to rock him backwards a little. But he held them both steady, welcoming her into a kiss that felt like fireworks. Everything was dancing inside her, light and heat and beauty, all of it fueled by so much joy she was amazed she wasn’t actually glowing.

Even when they broke apart, she didn’t want to move more than a few breaths away from him. “You know, this means you’re the one who wears the engagement ring.”

He stole another quick kiss. “No.”

She grinned, sliding her fingers through his hair. “I would be willing to accept a tattoo instead,” she murmured. “‘Property of Lucy Chen,’ ‘If lost please return to Lucy Chen,’ something like that.”

He cocked his head a little, the corners of his mouth curving up. “I’ll consider it.”

She laughed, stealing a kiss of her own. “I’ll get one too, if you want.”

“Don’t tempt me.” He stood then, shifting his grip so he could pick her up. When she wrapped her legs around him, he nipped lightly at her ear. “I do think we should hold off on dinner, though.”

“I agree.” She smiled slow and lazy as she leaned in for another kiss. “You taste better, anyway.”

**Author's Note:**

> Come check out my [original fiction,](https://jennifferwardell.wixsite.com/mybooks) my [blog,](http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com) or say hi to me on [Tumblr](http://sanctuaryforalluniverses.tumblr.com)!


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